In its primary current usage, the term "sanctuary" refers to protective community with people whose basic human rights are being violated by government officials. As a declared practice, it incorporates prophetic witness into protective community; that is, in addition to protecting the violated from the state, the public practice of sanctuary holds the state accountable for its violation of human rights. . . . Sanctuary is . . . a faith practice that is part of what it means for the church to be the church. -- Jim Corbett

This is a profound and eloquent discussion of the power and the responsibility of the community of God's people to do justice, to resist state violence, to obey human rights laws when states violate these laws. He expresses the church's prophetic role as a voice for the oppressed and against injustice. While the context lies in the 1980s, in the US sanctuary movement to protect the human rights of Central American refugees from the brutal violence of their governments and the ruthless deportations of the US government, the discussion of the faith community's power and responsibility is always current. ( )

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